Friday Films- "The Eyes and Ears of the Arctic - the DEW System" and "MSTS Arctic Operations"

"Advantage at Sea" - U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Coast Guard New Maritime Strategy

Tri Service Strategy by lawofsea on Scribd

Not Sexy But Important: "IG launches review of Military Sealift Command readiness problems"

Logistics, logistics, logistics. The ability to sustain a fleet at sea and to deliver and sustain forces in the field is a vital need of any navy, but especially for the U.S. Navy. Recent reports indicate that that "not sexy but important role" has some glitches as reported by the Navy Times J.D. Simkins in IG launches review of Military Sealift Command readiness problems

The Defense Department’s Inspector General will be taking a close look at the glaring readiness shortcomings at Military Sealift Command that were the subject of another government report last summer.

citing this GAO report:

GAO Report on Navy Readiness: Actions Needed to Maintain Viable Surge Sealift and Combat Logistics Fleets by lawofsea on Scribd

No surprises really, given that maintaining the combatant fleet has also suffered from insufficient funding for years that the "unsexy" logistics force would also suffer. However, not being surprised is not the same as being prepared . . .

Higfhlights:

The capability to rearm, refuel, and re-provision Navy ships at sea is critical to the

USNS Arctic (T-AOE 8)

Navy’s ability to project warfighting power from the sea. MSC’s combat logistics force consists of 29 auxiliary ships that provide logistics resupply to Navy combatant ships—aircraft carriers, destroyers, and amphibious ships, among others—at sea during underway replenishments. Doing so enables Navy combatant ships to stay at sea as long as needed during both peacetime and wartime, rather than requiring the ship to pull into port to refuel and resupply. The combat logistics force provides virtually everything that Navy ships need, including fuel, food, ordnance, dry cargo, spare parts, mail, and other supplies. According to MSC, in 2015, combat logistics force ships transferred more than 8.2 million barrels of petroleum products and over 90,000 pallets of dry cargo and ordnance during underway replenishments.
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The readiness of the surge sealift and combat logistics fleets has trended downward since 2012. We found that mission-limiting equipment casualties—incidents of degraded or out-of-service equipment—have increased over the past five years, and maintenance periods are running longer than planned, indicating declining materiel readiness across both fleets.
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We found that the readiness of the combat logistics force, like that of the surge sealift fleet, has trended downward in fiscal years 2012 through 2016. Specifically,
• Operational availability has declined: Operational availability measures the amount of time that a ship can get underway and execute a mission as required. MSC’s goal is for each combat logistics ship to be available for missions 270 days a year, devoting the rest of its time largely to maintenance and training. However, the fast combat support ship (T-AOE) and the fleet replenishment oiler (TAO) ship classes are not meeting this target and have seen declines in annual operational availability from 289 to 267 days (8 percent) and from 253 to 212 days (16 percent), respectively, over the past 5 years.32 These declines were due primarily to increases in unscheduled maintenance, according to MSC officials.
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The Navy has not assessed the effect that implementing widely distributed operations will have on the number and type of combat logistics ships required to support the fleet. As early as January 2015, senior Navy leaders outlined a new warfighting concept calling for widely distributed operations, referred to by the Navy as “distributed lethality.” In January 2017, the Navy released its new surface strategy, Surface Force Strategy: Return to Sea Control, which includes concepts for more widely distributed operations through distributed lethality. According to the strategy, the security interests of the United States are increasingly challenged by near-peer competitors, among others, and the Navy must adjust to this changing security environment. Implementing the distributed lethality concept is critical to maintaining the Navy’s maritime superiority and requires employing its fleet in dispersed formations across a wider expanse of territory to increase both the offensive and defensive capabilities of surface forces. According to the Navy, these concepts complicate enemy targeting by dispersing larger numbers of platforms capable of offensive action over a wide geographic area. According to Navy and MSC officials, a greater reliance on distributed operations and the lethality provided by a widely distributed fleet will require resupplying ships that are

USNS Big Horn (T-AO 198)

farther apart and generally increase the demand on the combat logistics force. This stands in contrast to the Navy’s traditional concept of operations, in which Navy combatant ships operate in task group formations—such as carrier strike groups or amphibious ready groups—and, to support these formations, combat logistics force ships transit with them and replenish them with supplies as needed.  In June 2016, the Center for Naval Analyses’ modeling found that spreading combatant ships, such as carrier strike groups, out over larger regions would put more stress on the combat logistics force, because additional ships would be needed as the groups spread out and also because distributing supplies to the individual ships would take longer.  Additionally, combat logistics force ships might need to operate independently in small groups—or even alone—which could put them at risk in contested environments, according to Navy officials. Another effect of widely distributed operations is that ships operating further from ports might require more underway replenishments (see fig. 6), which could affect the number and types of combat logistics force ships required to support the Navy fleet. Under current concepts, Navy carrier strike groups and other ships can typically stay at sea as long as needed, because they have the ability to be replenished either in port or while underway with fuel, ammunition, and stores transported by the combat logistics force. Under distributed operations, geographicallyseparated ships may not be able to be replenished in port during peacetime, or it may be too far or too dangerous in wartime for them to go into port, according to Navy officials. (footnotes omitted)

Really, you should read the report and consider the impact of a weak or too small logistics train on Navy operations, especially in contested water.

Unmentioned in the report but also vital is an adquate escort force for the logistics train. More on that topic later, along with look at the effect of the size of the U.S. flagged merchant shipping fleet on the U.S. role in the maritime world.

Defense Budgets - Let's Get Serious

Well, it's an election year and there is someone proposing a budget. Actually, it's Secretary of Defense Carter proposing a budget for the Defense Department, as set out here by DoD's Cheryl Pellerin (emphasis added):

Addressing diverse global challenges requires new thinking, new postures in some regions and new and enhanced capabilities, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said this morning during a preview of the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2017 budget request.

Speaking at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., Carter said the $582.7 billion defense budget to be released next week as part of the administration’s fiscal year 2017 budget request, marks a major inflection point for the department.

"In this budget we’re taking the long view," the secretary said. "We have to. Even as we fight today’s fights, we must also be prepared for the fights that might come 10, 20 or 30 years down the road.”

Five evolving challenges drive the department’s planning, he said, including Russian aggression in Europe, the rise of China in the Asia Pacific, North Korea, Iran, and the ongoing fight against terrorism, especially the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Five Challenges

The department must and will address all five challenges and across all domains, Carter said.

“Not just the usual air, land and sea, but also particularly in the areas of cyber, space and electronic warfare, where our reliance on technology has given us great strengths but also led to vulnerabilities that adversaries are eager to exploit,” he added.

Highlighting new investments in the budget to deal with the accelerated military campaign against ISIL, Carter said the department is requesting $7.5 billion, 50 percent more than in 2016.

Of that, he said $1.8 billion will go to buy more than 45,000 GPS-guided smart bombs and laser-guided rockets. The budget request also defers the A-10 final retirement until 2022, replacing it with F-35 Joint Strike Fighters squadron by squadron.

Strategic Capabilities

To support the European Reassurance Initiative, the Pentagon is requesting $3.4 billion in 2017, quadrupling the fiscal 2016 amount, the secretary said, to fund more rotational U.S. forces in Europe, more training and exercising with allies, and more prepositioned fighting gear and supporting infrastructure.

Investments in new technologies include projects being developed by the DoD Strategic Capabilities Office, which Carter created in 2012 when he was deputy defense secretary, “to reimagine existing DoD, intelligence community and commercial systems by giving them new roles and game-changing capabilities,” he said.

To drive such innovation forward, the 2017 budget request for research and development accounts is $71.4 billion.

U.S. Networked Swarm Boat

Carter said SCO efforts include projects involving advanced navigation, swarming autonomous vehicles for use in different ways and domains, self-driving networked boats, gun-based missile defense, and an arsenal plane that turns one of the department’s older planes into a flying launch pad for a range of conventional payloads.

Investing in Innovation

The budget request also drives smart and essential technological innovation, the secretary added, noting that one area is undersea capabilities for an $8.1 billion investment in 2017 and more than $40 billion over the next five years, Carter said, “to give us the most lethal undersea and anti-submarine force in the world.”

The Pentagon also is investing more in cyber, he said, requesting $7 billion in 2017 and nearly $35 billion over the next five years.

“Among other things,” Carter said, “this will help further improve DoD’s network defenses, which is critical, build more training ranges for our cyber warriors, and develop cyber tools and infrastructure needed to provide offensive cyber options.”

Cyber, Space, People

The Pentagon’s investment in space last year added more than $5 billion in new investments, and this year the department will enhance its ability to identify, attribute and negate all threatening actions in space, the secretary said.

That old budgeting magic

“With so many commercial space endeavors, he added, “we want this domain to be just like the oceans and the Internet: free and safe for all."

Carter said the Pentagon also is investing to build the force of the future, highlighting opening all remaining combat positions to women and strengthening support to military families to improve their quality of life.

Of course, the budget of the Defense Department has critics, an example of which being found in this U.S. News and World Report piece by William D. Hartung, A Golden Age for Pentagon Waste: Ridiculous Pentagon spending may be reaching historic levels:

As the Pentagon prepares for the formal release its budget next week, there is much talk within the department that the $600 billion-plus that is likely to be proposed is inadequate. In fact, rooting out billions of dollars of waste in the Pentagon budget would leave more than enough to provide a robust defense of the country without increasing spending.
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The Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction has uncovered scandal after scandal involving U.S. aid to that country, including the creation of private villas for a small number of personnel working for a Pentagon economic development initiative and a series of costly facilities that were never or barely used. An analysis by ProPublica puts the price tag for wasteful and misguided expenditures in Afghanistan at $17 billion, a figure that is higher than the GDP of 80 nations.
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It's not just about Afghanistan, though. Back in the United States, wasteful spending abounds. A Politico report on the Pentagon's $44 billion Defense Logistics Agency notes that it spent over $7 billion on unneeded equipment. Meanwhile, Congress is doing its part by inserting its own pet projects into the budget, whether or not they are top priorities in terms of defense needs. The most notable example is the F-35 combat aircraft, which at $1.4 trillion over its lifetime is the most expensive weapons project ever undertaken by the Pentagon. Despite the fact that the plane is far from ready for prime time, Congress stuffed 11 additional F-35s into the defense bill that was signed by the president last month.

These examples of waste and abuse spark memories of past Pentagon spending binges.
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The common thread uniting the C-5 scandal of the 1960s, the spare parts scandal of the 1980s and today's array of wasteful expenditures is that they all came on the heels of major military buildups. When there is too much money to go around and no one is minding the store, spending discipline goes out the window. As then Pentagon procurement chief Ashton Carter said in a 2011 hearing, in the decade of increasing Pentagon budgets that kicked off the 2000s, it was always possible to reach for more money, "so it's natural that some fat crept into all of our activities during that time period."
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But the best management tool is to put the Pentagon on a tighter budget, so it is forced to make some tough choices. No one, hawk or dove, should sit still for the waste of tens of billions of tax dollars. Waste doesn't defend us. On the contrary, spending too much on the Pentagon just subsidizes bad choices. It's time for Congress, the president and the presidential candidates of both parties to speak out about Pentagon waste, and put forward concrete plans for reining it in. Otherwise, our era may have the dubious distinction of being the golden age of Pentagon waste.

"William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy." The Center for International Policy, an entity whose mission statement includes: "We advocate policies that advance international cooperation, demilitarization, respect for human rights and action to alleviate climate change and stop illicit financial flows." I invite you to visit his biography here. As we used to ponder in sociology classes - can he be "value free" in his approach to defense spending? I don't know who chose the "ridiculous Pentagon spending" part of the headline.

In any event, let's give Mr. Hartung his due. There is waste in defense spending.

Lots of it.

Probably enough to pay for a couple of Ford-class carriers, though there are those whose argue that these new, big carriers are akin to the battleships of early WWII - an expensive idea whose time has mostly passed. See Dr. Jerry Hendrix's Stop the Navy's carrier plan: The Navy's plan to modernize its largest ships would just make them obsolete. Here's how to fix it.. Jerry's solution? Build cheaper, smaller carriers and add boatloads (literally) of unmanned aircraft. If there's enough waste to cover a couple of Fords, there is certainly enough to cover several smaller carriers and, probably, all those drones. We touched on this in our recent Midrats show here about "naval presence." Dr. Hendrix suggests the need for a fleet of 350 ships - many of which could be paid for with savings on big carriers,  too, I assume.

But the waste? A great deal of it involves the way in which defense spending is authorized by Congress. Want to close a base that's no longer needed? You can be sure that a couple of members of Congress will be fighting you all the way as the impact of the loss of federal dollars in their state and district become clear. In short, Congress, not the Pentagon owns a big chunk of the waste problem.

Should we  declare some programs as too wasteful to allow to live - perhaps the F-35? Maybe the Littoral Combat Ship/Frigate? Call all the expenditure so far "sunk costs? Then answer the question of what will the U.S do for the future, when the current inventory of ships and aircraft grow too long in the tooth or too small to meet the national strategy? What if the F-35 ultimately meets the great expectations placed on it? What if the LCS/Frigate becomes a not-so-overnight success?

 Want to rein in the Pentagon slush fund - the Overseas Contingency Operations budget? Perhaps we could fold money into the "regular" budget to handle little things like small wars?

It is good to recall some earlier words of Secretary Carter from May 2015:

Slashed budgets and high worldwide demand for U.S. military forces have created an unbalanced defense program that is taking on increasingly greater risks, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a Senate panel this morning.

The secretary testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee on the Defense Department’s fiscal year 2016 budget request. Joining him was Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“Over the past three fiscal years the Defense Department has taken more than three-quarters of a trillion dollars in cuts to its future-years defense spending,” Carter said.

The frequently sudden and unpredictable timing and nature of the cuts and continued uncertainty over sequestration have made the stresses greater, he added, forcing DoD to make a series of incremental, inefficient decisions.
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We’ve been forced to prioritize force structure and readiness over modernization, taking on risks in capabilities and infrastructure that are far too great,” he added.

“High demands on smaller force structure mean the equipment and capabilities of too many components of the military are growing too old, too fast -- from our nuclear deterrent to our tactical forces,” Carter told the panel.
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The secretary said that in recent weeks some in Congress have tried to give DoD its full fiscal year 2016 budget request by transferring funds from the base budget into DoD accounts for overseas contingency operations, or OCO –- funds that are meant to fund the incremental, temporary costs of overseas conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

“While this approach clearly recognizes that the budget total we’ve requested is needed, the avenue it takes is just as clearly a road to nowhere,” Carter said, explaining that President Barack Obama has said he won’t accept a budget that locks in sequestration going forward, as this approach does.
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“The Joint Chiefs and I are concerned that if our congressional committees continue to advance this idea and don’t explore alternatives we’ll all be left holding the bag,” Carter said, adding that the OCO approach does nothing to reduce the deficit.

“Most importantly,” he added, “because it doesn’t provide a stable multi-year budget horizon, this one-year approach is managerially unsound and unfairly dispiriting to our force. Our military personnel and their families deserve to know their future more than just one year at a time -- and not just them.”

Defense industry partners also need stability and longer-term plans to be efficient and cutting-edge, Carter said, “[and] … as a nation we need to base our defense budgeting on a long-term military strategy, and that’s not a one-year project.”

Such a funding approach reflects a narrow way of looking at national security, the secretary said.

Ignoring Vital Contributions

Year-to-year funding “ignores the vital contributions made by the State Department, the Justice Department, the Treasury Department and the Homeland Security Department,” he said.

And it disregards the enduring long-term connection between the nation’s security and factors like supporting the U.S. technological edge with scientific research and development, educating a future all-volunteer military force, and bolstering the general economic strength of the nation, Carter said.

“Finally, the secretary added, “I’m also concerned that how we deal with the budget is being watched by the rest of the world -– by our friends and potential foes alike. It could give a misleadingly diminished picture of America’s great strength and resolve.”
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To create a better solution than the one now being considered, he said, “I hope we can come together for a longer-term, multi-year agreement that provides the budget stability we need by locking in defense and nondefense budget levels consistent with the president’s request.”

Carter pledged his personal support and that of the department to this effort, and, he told the panel, “I would like to work with each of you, as well as other leaders and members of Congress, to this end.”

I high-lighted that part about "the whole world is watching" because it is so important. That and the idea that the current world situation is exceptionally complex - hence the overuse of our personnel and equipment.

To add to your thinking, consider this report, NATO's Nightmare: Russian Sub Activity Rises to Cold War Levels You think the potential "bad guys" aren't looking to exploit weakness?

Oh, and as seen here, I like that "arsenal plane" idea. We need to keep on the innovation path. Being static invites defeat.

Videos from West 2015

Well worth viewing, the thoughts of the folks who are in charge:

Deputy Secretary of Defense, Robert Work:


Admiral William Gortney, NORAD Commander:

Saving Defense Dollars: Air Force Looks to Downsize JSTARS Aircraft Potentially Saving Millions and Millions

Saving Defense dollars is a good thing, especially if the mission can still get done albeit at the lower cost. The U.S. Air Force is lookiing at a way to shave $200- 500 million dollars a year from its budget by replacing big jets (Now a Boeing 707 variant - the E8-C) with smaller jets (Boeing offering up a 737-700 version and Grumman proposing either a Gulfstream G650 or G550 model) with updated technology.

Nice report from Aviation Week U.S. Air Force Scrimps On Jstars Recap Program: USAF embraces ‘art of the available’ with ground surveillance aircraft:

The Air Force expects to spend about $4.3 billion buying 17 new Joint Stars aircraft based on its fiscal 2015 budget request. But the savings are expected to come in the annual operating cost of the aircraft: The E-8C would require about $650 million in work to meet requirements in the coming years, according to Jennifer Cassidy, an Air Force spokeswoman.

The platforms that housed the side-looking AN/APY-7 radars were old 707-300s purchased from airlines and outfitted by Northrop Grumman with the sensors and onboard work stations as well as supporting computer equipment. It was a thorny project, as each separate platform had its own aging and wear-and-tear issues. Twenty years later, the platform and its legacy computers, displays and radar are proving troublesome due to diminishing sources for parts and age of the equipment. The only commercial operator still listing the 707-300 in its fleet is Iran’s Meraj Air.

The replacement program is expected to save 28% in operations and sustainment funding, a cost avoidance of $200-500 million annually. “The current Jstars Recap Program Office estimates show a return on investment between fiscal year 2028 and 2030,” Cassidy says. Service officials provided written information rather than discussing their plans in an interview.

Competition is good and downsizing for the right reasons is great.

Killing ISIS 2: What Bing West Says

Bing West has thoughts on how to kill ISIS (a/k/a ISIL) at "How to Defeat ISIL":

U.S. policymakers must commit themselves clearly to containing, disrupting, and defeating it.

You should read the whole thing.

Mr. West makes many good points, but as with solving most problems, the first step is recognizing you have a problem and then choosing a plan of action to eliminate that problem. I have serious doubts about the ability of the Administration and its aiders and abettors in the press to do that with ISIS, because, as Mr. West notes:

If the commander-in-chief does not perceive a mortal threat and if the press grossly underreports the persecution of Christians and other minorities, then the public will see no reason for our military to become heavily involved.

With the Obama administration, nothing is ever what it was or may be in the future. There is no constancy. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has described the threat in terms of “some of the most brutal, barbaric forces we’ve ever seen in the world today, and a force, ISIL, and others that is an ideology that’s connected to an army, and it’s a force and a dimension that the world has never seen before like we have seen it now.” The Visigoths, Attila, and Tamerlane have a new rival. Obviously this new scourge upon mankind must be destroyed.

But wait: Then Mr. Hagel delivered the punch line. “I recommended to the president, and the president has authorized me, to go ahead and send about 130 new assessment-team members.” Mr. Hagel is holding the rest of our force in reserve in case the Martians attack. One hundred thirty assessors are sufficient to deal with “the most barbaric forces we’ve ever seen.”

It occurs to me that the Administration having charted its course ("withdrawal by date X" and "no U.S. combat forces in country Y"), plods along, adjusting only its portrayal of the facts to rationalize that course. A ship's navigator who failed to alter course to allow for the effects of winds and currents is headed for rocks which cannot be avoided by repeating phrases such as "the plan was to steer 270 degrees and we are on that plan" or "most of the crew likes the course we are on" or "once we steered course 270 and ended up where we were supposed to be."

As noted in Killing ISIS? you need more than an announcement of what you want the end result to be ("We put a bell on the cat!" or ""ISIS must be destroyed") to make things happen. If the U.S. goal is to kill ISIS, then the planners better be put to work to use the tools available to make that happen. If it requires U.S. combat ground forces to cut off the ISIS logistics train - well, conditions on the ground have changed since there were promises made to withdraw our forces from Iraq. The Administration can blame it on unexpected ocean currents or winds or on the way the world works - as in the way bad guys tend to rush in to fill vacuums of power.

TANSTAAFL, "There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch" and the Defense Budget

David R. Henderson, TANSTAAFL, There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

"TANSTAAFL." It stands for "There Ain't No Such Thing As a Free Lunch." Science fiction writer Robert Heinlein popularized the acronym in his novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
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There are two meanings of the expression, "There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch." The first, which is always true, is that there is scarcity, and scarcity necessitates tradeoffs. The second, which is almost always true, is that when someone offers you something "for free," he expects something in return. Both are important meanings of the expression. And both are highly relevant to understanding economics and human behavior.

About 42 or so years ago, an "Intro to Economics" course I observed used a book tited Tanstaafl (There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch) - A Libertarian Perspective on Environmental Policy by Edwin Dolan. Here's a portion of the introduction:

Just as a thought experiment, try pondering how "free" healthcare is provided.

Get it?

But, hey, this is post about National Defense! So how does TANSTAAFL apply?

Okay, how about this?

[President] Obama last week requested $3.7 billion from Congress to respond to the flow of children crossing the border but that did not include additional funding for the military, which is housing thousands of immigrant children and trying to contain the violent drug trade.

Regardless of the merits of spending $3.7 billion on people entering the U.S. illegally, there is the question of the tradeoffs the military must make in "housing thousands of immigrant children and trying to contain the violent drug trade." After all, the military is a scarce resource that must always tradeoff resources to accomplish its missions. What missions will be sacrificed to bear the costs associated with these children? Do we want to fire thousands of highly trained people to allow the budget to balance?

Perhaps.

The U.S. Army is looking to cut 120,000 troops by 2020:

The 2014 QDR states that the active Army will reduce from its war-time high of 570,000 to 440,000–450,000 Soldiers.

If you want to see how that plays out, look at the suggested economic impact (tradeoff) on some of the communities that surround military bases.

For example, at Ft Campbell, Ky which could lose up to 16,000 troops and civilians by 2020:

With those losses, yearly income in the area is expected to fall by 7.7 percent, or $986.6 million. Total reduction in sales is estimated at $768.6 million with a corresponding loss in sales tax receipts in both Tennessee and Kentucky estimated at between $7.4 to $11.6 million annually.

Sorry, FT Campbell, we need that money for other things more important than your local economy.

Or how about Langley AFB which has some 742 position cuts proposed?:

The plan does not break down the 742 positions between military and civilian personnel.

"It does not mean 742 people at Langley are losing their jobs," said Capt. Erika Yepsen, an Air Force spokeswoman. "It means that 742 positions are coming off the books."
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It should be considered "a disappointment to the local economy," but just how much remains to be seen, said Bruce Sturk, director of federal facilities support for the City of Hampton. It comes one week after the Army announced a potential cut of up to 4,200 people at Fort Eustis in Newport News should deep spending reductions return in 2016.
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The positions cut at Langley are part of a plan to reduce 3,459 positions in the Air Force, both in the U.S. and overseas. It is designed to save $1.6 billion in the next five years, but the positions will be limited sooner than that, said Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James.

A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you can afford to "respond to the flow of children crossing the border."

TANSTAAFL hits the Navy, too. See Navy Cancelled New Destroyer Flight Due to Ohio Replacement Submarine Costs:

The looming hit to the shipbuilding budget from the Navy’s plan to build 12 new nuclear ballistic missile submarines resulted in the cancellation of a fourth flight of Arleigh Burke destroyers (DDG-51) as well as the controversial plan to layup 11 Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers (CG-47), the navy’s chief shipbuilder told a congressional panel in a recent hearing on cruiser and destroyer modification.

The shifts in the Navy’s large surface combatants come as the $100 billion bill for the 12 new boomers begin to take up more and more of the Navy’s shipbuilding budget — leaving less and less for other shipbuilding programs.

You know, someone has to decide - which is more important - a new bunch of destroyers we want to replace anyway or 12 new boomers? Ah, well, boomers. Sorry, there, surface Navy, but . . . make do, make do.

Got a scarcity of ships? Well then, make them deploy longer to meet the identified needs. See 8-month deployments become the 'new norm':

“Our deployments are going to be seven-and-a-half, eight months,” said Rear Adm. Brian Luther, whose staff monitors operations tempo for the chief of naval operations. “So what I think you can say is the six-month deployments will be the exception rather than the norm. And the new norm now will be the seven-and-a-half, eight-month deployments.”

Navy officials strenuously objected to that notion of routine, longer deployments two years ago, but cruises continued to creep longer.

Indeed, the strain sailors have felt in the past few years is backed up by newly released Navy data showing the fleet’s deployment pace recently spiked to record levels, a flux littered with long cruises and short turnarounds that is upping wear and tear on sailors and ships.....

Tradeoffs everywhere.

Now, like anyone else who has suffered through a budgeting process, I know that deciding priorities is hard. Very hard. Especially when you are broke. But when you are broke, you need to learn to say "no" to things you can't afford so that you can eventually say "yes" to things that you need.

The key to budgeting is deciding what you what the end result to look like ("Given the obligations we face around the world, we need 340 ships of the following types to be in place by 2020" or "While we can make do with an active army force of 440,000, we need a strong reserve component for activation on short notice and we need to pay to maintain that force.").

Budgeting requires strategic planning and risk assessment to make the numbers involved relate to reality.

Then that budget has to be sold to the funding agent - Congress. Because National Defense is written into the Constitution, it ought to have a higher priority than non-Constitutional wants. On the other hand, someone in Congress should keep the military honest in its planning and risk assessment work.

Sadly, the tradeoff many Congressmen make in the defense budgeting process is making sure their state or district get its share of the pie.

Now, if you wonder that suggested big cuts to a major base in Kentucky have anything to do with the Senate minority leader being from that state and running for re-election, you might be a little cynical. Maybe.

North Korean Threat: EMP? Death by Threats?

Source: VOA

About 8 or 9 years ago there were dire warnings about the possible danger of some sort of attack that could result in "electromagnetic pulse" ("EMP") damage to the U.S. (see Yet Another Threat). Sen Jon Kyl, Speaker Gingrich and others raised alarms.

An old ground burst

Now, these issues rise again, this time with the North Koreans as the threat. For example, from The Washington Times :

North Korea has labored for years and starved its people so it could develop an intercontinental missile capable of reaching the United States. Why? Because they have a special kind of nuclear weapon that could destroy the United States with a single blow.

In summer 2004, a delegation of Russian generals warned the Congressional Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Commission that secrets had leaked to North Korea for a decisive new nuclear weapon — a Super-EMP warhead.

Any nuclear weapon detonated above an altitude of 30 kilometers will generate an electromagnetic pulse that will destroy electronics and could collapse the electric power grid and other critical infrastructures — communications, transportation, banking and finance, food and water — that sustain modern civilization and the lives of 300 million Americans. All could be destroyed by a single nuclear weapon making an EMP attack.

More at Chaos from the Sky: Why the EMP Threat Is Real:

An EMP attack would cause cascading failures in other critical infrastructures and a possible national blackout. These conclusions are based on tests showing that E1 high-EMP simulators couple well to electric grid distribution power lines and low-voltage cables. Radasky and Pry point out that “electronic control systems are effectively the Achilles’ heel of our power delivery network.”

The electrical power grid supports all of America’s other critical infrastructures and is vulnerable to an EMP. Any credible threat depends on critical communications infrastructures. If an EMP attack should succeed, more than two-thirds of the American people could perish within 12 months of the event.

And more at Rebuttal to “The EMP threat: fact, fiction, and response” (co-authored by Dr. Pry who also wrote the Washington Times opinion):

One scenario of particular concern to the EMP Commission is that rogue states or terrorists could make an “anonymous EMP attack” by launching a short- or medium-range missile off a freighter outside US territorial waters.22 This would eliminate the need for an ICBM to deliver the EMP attack. Since the EMP strike would come from no one’s territory, it could also conceal the identity of the attacker. Although it would not be necessary, an additional layer of anonymity could be achieved by a state sponsor by contracting with terrorists to carry out the attack.

It should be noted that Dr. Pry is also head of EMPACT America, " . . . a bipartisan . . . organization for citizens concerned about protecting the American people from a nuclear or natural electromagnetic pulse (EMP) catastrophe."

The Institute for Foreign Policy Studies has produced a white paper on Counter the EMP Threat: The Role of Missile Defense (pdf)(2010) that suggests improvements to the Aegis BMD force and other practices to reduce the risk.

Does the DPRK have a missile capable of reaching the U.S.? Take a look at the chart above - the answer currently seems to be "no" - but North Korea rocket 'has 10,000km range' the BBC reported in December 2012. It appears the NORKs have a new system, the Unha-3 that has longer legs than what they've been up to previously but there are questions about its payload capacity:

Despite western press speculation that the Unha 3 could be the basis for an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the United States, this three stage rocket is incapable of lofting the payload necessary for that mission. Similarly the American and Soviet analogues (Thor and R-14) could not be upgraded for such a mission. In 1957 Soviet Chief Designer Yangel sold his R-16 ICBM concept to the leadership as simply his R-12 IRBM serving as the second stage to his R-14 MRBM. In fact substantial redesign and repackaging of all elements, and new propellants were necessary to provide a viable ICBM. The same applies to any North Korean design, which would require a new 3-m diameter first stage.

However, some cautionary advice in the update to Business Insider's North Korea Is Not Even Close To Hitting The US With A Nuke, which also linked to this video from USC professor Gruntman:

ASTE 520 Spacecraft Design - North Korea Satellite Launch from USC Graduate and Professional Pr on Vimeo.
Update: Some key comments begin abour 16:27.

Just to add to the tale, comes this DPRK propaganda photo (via The Washington Post) , purportedly showing the lines of attack on the U.S. mainland, including, oh, my!, the Eastern Seaboard on the high tech chart in the background:

Gotta like those hats.

See also from nknews.org: ANALYSIS: North Korean Photo Reveals ‘U.S. Mainland Strike Plan’.

And this delightful piece from the DPRK's own Central News Agency Kim Jong Un Convenes Operation Meeting, Finally Examines and Ratifies Plan for Firepower Strike:

He said the enemies are bringing dark clouds of a nuclear war testing the DPRK's self-restraint, adding the DPRK can no longer tolerate this. He ordered the KPA to blow up and reduce everything to ashes at a single strike, if an order is issued.

He said the heroic service personnel of the KPA and all other people, their hearts burning with irrepressible resentment at the reckless war provocation moves of the U.S. imperialists, are now waiting for a final order of the WPK Central Committee, hardening their will to turn out in a do-or-die battle with the enemies.

Finally, I added this as an update to a previous post, but it worth considering in light of the above, George H. Wittman's Peace Through Bluster and Missiles.

Fun and games with the NORKs.

North Korea: Threaten U.S. (Again) - Guam and Hawaii and a "Sea of Fire"

Guam and Hawaii (and I would think Alaska) ought to practicing "duck and cover" according to the really, really threatening North Koreans, or as the current Kim-in-Charge calls it, the "Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea" which just proves that once you start lying it is hard to stop or something.



In any event, the NY Times covers the threat as North Korea Calls Hawaii and U.S. Mainland Targets

North Korea’s military said it put all its missile and artillery units on “the highest alert” on Tuesday, ordering them to be ready to hit South Korea, as well as the United States and its military installations in Hawaii and Guam.

I assume that the NORKS must have great confidence in (a) their ability to launch missiles without having them shot down (if they rise high enough to get shot down) and (b) their guidance systems in order to hit, say, Guam, which is, as I can testify from having lived there, a small island in a great big ocean. By small I mean 35 miles long and about 8 miles wide.

On the other hand, perhaps K-i-C is unconcerned with accuracy, since it is unlikely that he will ever learn the results of any missile launch against the U.S.


The NORKS have also announced their "readiness for combat":

"From this moment, the Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army will be putting into combat duty posture No. 1 all field artillery units, including long-range artillery units and strategic rocket units, that will target all enemy objects in U.S. invasionary bases on its mainland, Hawaii and Guam," the North's KCNA news agency said.

My "invasionary base" is safely out of NORK range.

UPDATE: John Hudson adds to his list of DPRK (heh) threats here.

Reality Bites: "Obama's Missile-Defense Reversal"

Mistakes were made - now begins the mad dash to fix the mess created by an arrogant academic fantasy, as noted in by the Wall Street Journal in Obama's Missile-Defense Reversal:

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel chose Friday afternoon to announce one of the biggest switcheroos of the Obama Presidency: The Pentagon now plans to fortify America's homeland defenses against missile attack, reversing a 2009 decision that was part of President Obama's fantasy of a world without nuclear weapons.

Build more missile defense ships, please

Mr. Hagel said the U.S. will add 14 ground-based long-range missile interceptors by 2017 to the 30 already deployed at sites in Alaska and California. "The United States has missile-defense systems in place to protect us from limited ICBM attacks," said the new Defense chief, "but North Korea in particular has recently made advances in its capabilities and is engaged in a series of irresponsible and reckless provocations."

That's for sure. The Pentagon believes North Korean missiles can already reach Alaska and Hawaii, and it's only a matter of time before they are nuclear-tipped and can hit Seattle or San Diego. The Pyongyang regime has recently promised to attack the U.S. and turn South Korea into a "sea of fire." It's nice to see the Obama Administration finally admitting reality.

Axis of evil, anyone?

Read it all.

The NORK threat of a "sea of fire" appears therein.

A prior thought on how to deal with the rogue state of North Korea here.

UPDATE: More here:

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced plans on Friday to bolster U.S. missile defenses in response to "irresponsible and reckless provocations" by North Korea, which threatened a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States last week.

What I heard at the Marine Corps War College graduation

First, congratulations to the graduates of the various programs offered by the Marine Corps University who were honored on 6 June. You are an impressive group, you mid-career Marines, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Army officers, along with the remarkable group of foreign military students from Afghanistan to Ukraine who were your classmates.

For those of you who could not attend this ceremony, part of the MCU is the Command and Staff College (CSC) which enrolls Marine/AF/Army majors and Navy/Coast Guard Lieutenant Commanders who have taken on the challenge of a military career.*

If not all future generals or admirals, these CSC grads will be part of that core around which forms the U.S. military. And, yes, I know that there are those other Command and Staff schools who also annually send a couple of hundred of graduates out into the field for field commands but I was at this graduation.

For the graduates, a career milestone has been checked off. The first PME has been fulfilled.

Of the 204 or so 2012 graduates of the CSC about 164 received Masters of Military Science degrees. Unknowing civilians may scoff at such a degree, noting its apparent lack of usefulness in their civilian world.

That civilian world misses the point.

You want your military to have read Clausewitz, to have walked the fields of Gettysburg, to have studied logistics and read John Boyd, because that is the world of the military professional.

You want that hard-charging young major or LtCol to draw on more than just personal experience when the nation's defense is in his or her hands.

So, again, congratulations to the grads. And a further congratulations to the American people. You should take pride that in the service of your country are such amazing young people.

Second, let me talk about the graduation speech for the class of 2012. The Assistant Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps delivered it.

It was short as such things go, but a couple of things struck me. In the absence of a transcript, you will have to live with my recollection (and I was not taking notes).

General Dunford pointed out that for some time there were few changes in the way in which the Marines went to war. He noted that when he entered the Corps, he was issued the same "cold weather gear" that his father had used in the Korean War ("not like the gear my father used, but the same gear") and that a platoon leader in Korea or Vietnam would not have had difficulty, if magically transported to the future, with the tactics first employed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He then noted in past few years that great changes have occurred in the ways of war. Changes such that a Marine who fought in Afghanistan 6 years ago would not find things the same - there had been such a rapid revolution in tactics and equipment that the American battlefield was off in a new direction. A platoon once responsible for a limited front, now has coverage of a vastly larger area. Better communications, better equipment, and (I assume) better Marines allow such an expansion of responsibility.

So, Lesson #1: "Things change"

Then the challenge - he had a couple of good yarns about things that seemed, well, "unnecessary" at the time they occurred. He spoke of an effort he led, as a young colonel, to assess the threat to and protection of various key national infrastructure assets - ports and bridges and highways and the like - which his boss did not really appreciate the need for, at least in early 2001.

He also spoke of a paper written by a young officer that addressed the threat of "improvised explosive devices (IEDs or roadside bombs)" and suggested a look at the South African response to such weapons. All of which ultimately led to the MRAP vehicle. The paper was written in 1996 by an officer taking a "what if?" look at things.

Things change. You never know exactly how, so you need to be flexible and ready.

So, Lesson 2: "Challenge the conventional thinking."

We no longer line up in box formations and attack in broad fronts. The aircraft is not just used for spotting targets. Submarines are not interesting novelties. Anti-ballistic missile systems can work. OODA.

Revolutions in military affairs were not led by assuming things have to be as they have been

I don't know how many of the graduates were listening to the speech.

I can't remember a single line of any graduation speech I have ever heard because, well, I had other things on my mind. Like getting the heck out of there.

But, if they were listening they should have heard the warning order implied in the softly delivered speech, which I took to be:

We do not know what you will face in the future, We only know that you will need to use your education and experience to face those challenges that come your way. We have added to your tool kit and trust you to put those tools to good use.

Our national defense is- well - you and your band of brothers in arms.

Be flexible, be ready, be strong.

Because you never know.

*And FBI/DEA/BATF/DOS and others

CyberWar: Time to Reboot

DARPA has a warning about cyber security and national defense "Don’t Try To Predict The Future Of Cyber Security Build It":

To date, there has been much focus on increasing DoD cyber defensive capabilities. To be sure, the list of needed capabilities is long. DoD networks may be safer than they were, but systems are often easily penetrated, accounts are routinely hacked, intellectual property and sensitive information are compromised, and the supply chain is not verifiably secure.

The Agency’s recent testimony before congress reinforced that malicious cyber attacks are not merely an existential threat to DoD bits and bytes; they are a real threat to physical systems—including military systems—as well as to U.S. warfighters.

The U.S. will not prevail against these threats simply by scaling current approaches.

“With respect to cyber offense, it is our firm belief that the Department, indeed the Nation, is at an inflection point,” said DARPA Director, Regina E. Dugan. “It is increasingly clear that the operational needs of the Department of Defense (DoD) cannot be achieved by scaling traditional methods for cyber. To be relevant, the DoD needs cyber tools that are matched in diversity of effect and scale, address different timescales and entirely new targets. It will require the integration of cyber and electronic warfare at unprecedented levels.”

Armed with original research spearheaded by Dugan and the Agency’s Deputy Director, Kaigham J. Gabriel, the Agency created a cyber analytical framework as a means of identifying specific opportunities and gaps in capabilities. “The DARPA Cyber Analytic Framework, completed over a period of months through original research and detailed investigation, concluded that the U.S. approach to cyber security is dominated by a strategy that layers security on to a uniform architecture,” said Dugan. “We do this to create tactical breathing space, but this approach is not convergent with an evolving threat.”

In normal English, that means that the current efforts are akin to little kids building sand walls to divert the sea around sand castles. It doesn't matter how many of those walls you build, they are still sand and easily defeated by the rising tide. In cyber world, layered defenses on a easily broken system are like those sand walls - and the tide of threats is rising.

How to fix it? That's DARPA's quest.

How to Screw Up National Defense

Read this The American Spectator : Obama's Machete Hacks Up Pentagon Budget and then come back for a discussion.

The President of the United States,flying blind into the world of national defense, comes up with a "magic number" that he must "feel" is the right amount to cut the U.S. Defense budget. That proposal is another $400 billion cut over the next 10 years in addition to the last $400 billion the president says has already been cut. So, what will be removed from national defense by hacking $800 billion?

Well, as pointed out in the article, who the hell knows?

He wants the analysis to find an additional $400 billion to cut from the Pentagon budget in the same ten years [NB as the first $400B] and redefine our "role in a changing world." It's both necessary and proper to make the analysis the president proposed. But, once again, he's set the amount to be cut before performing the essential threat analysis.

In other words, fire, then move the target to claim a hit.

Again, to the commentary,

We will no longer plan for the future and invest in the tools of war we will foreseeably need. The cuts Obama and Gates have already made will result in a force that is shaped differently from the one we might need were an enemy to disagree with Dr. Gates' belief that we won't have to fight another conventional war. Or if American satellites were attacked in space. Or if we were to suffer the kind of cyber attacks that were made on Estonia, Kyrgyzstan, and Georgia by Putin's Russia. Or if any number of other real threats were to be realized.

To borrow Obama's phrase, let's be perfectly clear. Our nation's security and that of our allies is at risk because of the cuts that have already been made in the absence of a realistic analysis of the threats we face. We cannot afford another round of "hope and change" at the Pentagon. The armed services need a budget that enables them to meet and deter or defeat every serious threat.

This is no way to plan any part of government, let alone that devoted to national defense. It's time for serious people to look at all aspects of the budget, and set realistic goals, not pull "magic numbers" out of the air.

It might even be possible that the President's dollar amount is exactly right. Stranger things have happened. But the wrong way to find out is when we really need a military we don't have.

Fearless Navy Bloggers Take to the Air: Halloween Special -Episode 43 EMP Threat: Hype or Other? 10/31/2010

Time for scary tales and . . . Midrats presents its own version of the "Treehouse of Horror" with Episode 43 EMP Threat Hype or Other, Sunday (Halloween!) at 5 pm, as we discuss the stuff behind best-selling books and widely printed op-ed pieces - the threat posed by an Electro Magnetic Pulse attack:

When you mention the possibility of an Electro Magnetic Pulse attack (EMP) - people have a reaction of, "What?" - either that or they get all fidgety or roll their eyes. Is the EMP threat trick or treat? Join us this Halloween to discuss the issue with their guests Jason Sigger, defense policy analyst, opinion writer and blogger (Armchair Generalist) for the first half of the hour. For the second half of the hour, James Carafano, Ph.D., Deputy Director, The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies and Director, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

For a recent Armchair Generalist blog post on EMP, see here.

For a recent Dr. Carafano piece on EMP, see here.

Wikipedia on EMP.

Not really a debate, but . . . how big a threat? Listen and then decide --- how afraid to be.

Listen to internet radio with Midrats on Blog Talk Radio

Recommended Viewing: "A New Cold War: Inside Nuclear Iran" with Reza Kahlili, Michael Ledeen, and Melissa Boyle Mahle - Book TV

I can't embed the video, but in a spare hour and a half, I highly recommend viewing this C-Span Book TV episode: International Affairs - A New Cold War: Inside Nuclear Iran with Reza Kahlili, Michael Ledeen, and Melissa Boyle Mahle.

Described as:

A panel discussion on how to deal with Iran with Reza Kahlili ("A Time to Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent Inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran"), Michael Ledeen ("Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War against the West"), and Melissa Boyle Mahle ("Denial and Deception: An .. Read More
A panel discussion on how to deal with Iran with Reza Kahlili ("A Time to Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent Inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran"), Michael Ledeen ("Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War against the West"), and Melissa Boyle Mahle ("Denial and Deception: An Insider’s View of the CIA"). This event was hosted by the Spy Museum in Washington, DC.

Of special note is the section that begins about 56:33, Michael Ledeen speaking about 1:00:00,and Reza Kahlili's comments following a question that begins about 1:09:40 dealing with the effects of Iran having nuclear weapons and blackmailing the Arabian/Persian Gulf area (and the rest of the world).

It ought to send chills down your spine.

Somali Pirates Going All Wimpy?

Somali pirates seemingly are going all wimpy because both NATO and the EU are stepping up their anti-pirate activity, a trend evidenced by this report Somali pirates release hijacked vessel after encountering Italian warship - Winnipeg Free Press:

Somali pirates abandoned a hijacked Iranian vessel and set its 19-man crew free Thursday after encountering an Italian warship just off the coast of Somalia, NATO said.

Shona Lowe, a NATO anti-piracy spokeswoman, said the SAAD1 transport was released near the port of Garacad on Somalia's Indian Ocean coast, where it was hijacked five months ago and had been anchored.

It was unclear why the pirates set sail on Sunday in their captured ship, but they encountered the Italian frigate Scirocco which was patrolling nearby. On Thursday, the hijackers abandoned the Iranian ship and returned to Garacad in a dinghy, Lowe said.

"Because our ships are there, the pirates no longer have the freedom they had in the past," she said. "There was no fire fight. It was the presence of the Italian ship that made them leave."

If it was just that easy - having a warship show up - Somali piracy could have be quashed a long time ago.

Billions for "Entitlements" - Defense Not So Much

Read Basic Instincts: Defense and Cuts Are Synonyms - Steve Schippert:

While we are conducting two hot wars — pardon, “overseas contingency operations” — and trying to find ways to defend against both asymmetrical warfare and the traditional conventional military threats that have not disappeared just because al-Qaeda attacked us, the only place Obama can find any waste is in Defense.

I guess the Department of Education (budget request $46.7 billion) phones were busy. The appropriately nicknamed "ED" also plays a role in pushing another $13 billion or so to various states as part of the $53.6 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund.

Assuming that it will take eight years for any non-terrorist threat to be ready to challenge the U.S. militarily, and that in those eight years are 4 Congressional elections and two presidential elections, it would seem politically astute to bribe voters - er- "invest" in programs channeling money to one's voter base than to worry over national security matters, doesn't it?

Not much of a gamble in the short term. I mean the weapons, ships, carriers and aircraft we have now ought to be good for another 8 years, right?

Especially if it's not your children out there on the front lines.